SUMMER 2021 - VOL. XXX Issue CXIII Poe Park, Coming of Age By Carol Aaron, [email protected] When I was growing up in popular songs of the sixties. The Bronx, the go-to place to Sometimes, a group of us socialize in the summer was would visit Poe’s house, and Poe Park. Located a short bus then eagerly make our way ride, or long walk, away from towards the bandstand. my apartment, it was a mecca Circling the grassy area for teens, who congregated containing the bandstand was there to listen to music and a concrete path, filled with park meet and greet. benches. Elderly neighborhood Edgar Allan Poe spent ladies, wearing coats despite the last years of his life, from the warmth and clutching vinyl 1846 to 1849, in The Bronx handbags, and sometimes older living in what became Poe men, would perch on these Cottage, a museum of sorts. A benches, regularly commenting small wooden farmhouse, built on the youth parading in front about 1812, the cottage once of them. Many of these folks commanded an unobstructed Poe Park Gazebo were hard of hearing and their view over the rolling Bronx comments could be overheard. hills. It was a bucolic setting, in which the author “Isn’t she sweet? Hope that cute guy in the red penned his most enduring works, including Annabel shirt goes for her.” Lee, The Bells, and Eureka. “That one over there looks just like Elizabeth In April, 1844, Poe and his wife Virginia moved Taylor.” to The Bronx. Virginia was ill, and Poe hoped that A lady replied with a sniff and toss of her head, the country air would rescue her failing health. “That one, that Elizabeth Taylor. She stole Eddie Unfortunately, she died of tuberculosis in January Fisher right out from under the nose of Debby of 1847. Poe himself died two years later under Reynolds,” she stated, commenting on the headlines mysterious circumstances in Baltimore, Maryland. of those days. Those types of remarks made me smile. The cottage, no longer Hollywood divorces were in the country, was set a good topic for gossip in on the outskirts of the the early sixties. park, an oasis of greenery Looking at a passing in a very urban location, girl, another lady would surrounded by stores and comment loudly. (She apartment buildings. A too was hard of hearing.) bandstand was set up in the “Her skirt is too tight. middle of Poe Park, where How could her mother let on Wednesday nights in her out of the house like summer, a band played the that?” These voyeurs were Poe Cottage continued on page 25 From The Editors . Clinton ‘61 Taft ‘62 To give the children of The Bronx a fun portal to playful learning, the Bronx Children Museum will open its doors in late 2021. The Museum is one of few cultural institutions in The Bronx geared toward young children, especially those children and families who cannot afford (or would not normally visit) a museum. The Bronx has 1.3 million residents. It is larger than Boston, has 250,000 children under the age of nine years, and is the only borough in New York City without a children’s museum facility. Currently a “museum without walls”, BxCM serves almost 18,000 Bronx residents annually. Through innovative mobile programming, Bronx Children’s Museum, exterior BxCM engages children and adults in the arts and sciences, using its bus as a roving learning environment. The Museum also has temporary exhibits and ongoing after-school and summer programming throughout the borough at community-based organizations, schools, shelters, libraries, local festivals, and parks. The Musuem will serve nearly 75,000 children each year and will feature bright, open exhibit spaces; age-appropriate permanent and temporary interactive exhibits exploring the richness of The Bronx in the arts, culture, community, natural resources, greening, and energy; flexible studio space for community gatherings and Bronx Children’s Museum, interior meetings; and offices for Bronx Children Museum staff. A major renovation project at a New York City landmark which was halted due to the coronavirus pandemic is back on. The plan includes restoring history while investing in the future of the beach at Pelham Bay Park. The sun has been shining over Orchard Beach, The Bronx’s only public beach, which environmental leaders who studied the water quality in 204 beaches along the Long Island Sound have listed in the top 10. But opposite the view of the Long Island Sound is a bit of an eyesore. The deteriorating pavilion has been mostly closed to the public for years. A restoration has been the mission of Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., who grew up going to the beach, the so-called “Bronx Riviera”. He has been trying to restore this piece of area history, which was built in the 1930s, but it took years to raise the $75 million needed. Orchard Beach Pavilion Diaz has allocated nearly $25 million of capital funding into this project, for which the city’s Parks Publishers & Editors Steven M. Samtur Clinton ‘61 Susan J. Samtur Taft ‘62 Department and Economic Development Corporation are Contributing Editors Adam Samtur partnering. After a pause due to COVID-19, and Barbara Fasciani Roosevelt ‘65 P.O. Box 141H Martin Jackson Science ‘58 time spent getting approval from the New York Scarsdale, NY 10583 Sandra Zuckerman Jefferson ‘57 City Landmarks Preservation Commission (the site Tel: 914-592-1647 Paula DeMarta Mastroianni was designated a city landmark in 2006), the designers, Fax: 914-725-2620 Anton Evangelista www.backinthebronx.com John Galasso Marvel Architects, can now move forward. Changes Ed Bauccio A number of the photographs in Anne Bauccio include ramps for easy access to the beach, and also the Back In THE BRONX are courtesy of and available Art & Production: Case Aiken return of concessions. Diaz said he pictures stores, an from the Bronx Historical Society. event space, and restaurants to bring people to the beach Printing Inland Printing Woodbury, NY year-round. Construction is set to start next spring and Any submissions of stories, letters, photos, and/or videos will be accepted only with Back In THE BRONX magazine having the non-exclusive rights to publish in its magazine take about two years, so expect to see the entire vision and/or in reprints and anthologies and/or in future books containing the compilation of previous magazine issues, and/or in any current or future DVD, and in any Back In THE come to life in 2024. BRONX publications. continued on page 31 2 Reminiscing Weatherproof Halloween By Ann S. Epstein, [email protected] The brick apartment building where I grew up man with reverence as a “pharmacist”, although she in the 1950s was typical of the Norwood section of complained about his prices. The candy stores that The Bronx. We lived at 3405 Putnam Place. Our anchored the other three corners all sold more than neighborhood was populated by immigrants and their candy, and we frequented each for different reasons. descendants, primarily Eastern European and Russian I didn’t visit the one on the northeast corner until I Jews, and Irish and Italian Catholics. The emphasis bought my first pack of cigarettes, Newport Menthol, was on assimilation; despite being well that is, slipping into below the then-legal the mainstream of age of 17. American life. For The store on the Jewish kids like me, that northwest corner was included celebrating good for emergency Halloween and going school supplies like trick-or-treating. We Eberhard Faber were ignorant of its Erasers. But our Christian origins. go-to store, on the To us, Halloween southwest corner, was was as American as Lapin’s, the source of Thanksgiving, the other mint chocolate chip American fall holiday ice cream cones with that didn’t entail chocolate sprinkles, foreign rituals, spicy thick and salt-coated foods, or a language Rold Gold pretzels that the adults spoke which our grimy hands when they didn’t want 3405 Putnam Place pulled from a jar, and their children and grandchildren to understand what pastel-colored sugar dots on a paper strip whose they were saying. residual backing stuck to our tongues. Lapin’s also Decades later, when I watched the movie E.T., sold the new Spalding pink rubber balls, whose high listened to forecasts, or worried about my daughter bounce our motor reflexes had to adjust to after weeks (and now my grandsons) traversing our Midwestern of using our half-dead old ones. neighborhood on Halloween, I marveled that On the other side of Gun Hill Road was Sam’s concerns about safety and the weather played no part Appetizing, which reeked of lox, herring, and whole in my Bronx childhood. With six floors, and eleven smoked white fish with bulging eyes, and where we apartments per floor, there were plenty of doors for us fished in a barrel for five-cent pickles.Harry’s Shoes to knock on without stepping outside. Moreover, we was where our mothers took us for sturdy footwear traveled in secure packs. Fourteen elementary-aged before we became style-conscious and upgraded to children lived in the building. So, just as there was the children’s shoe department at Alexander’s on always at least one kid around to play with, there was Fordham Road. always a group to trick-or-treat with. This situation Our side of the main drag was home to the green was especially fortunate because our short street, grocer, whose produce we supplemented with goods Putnam Place, had few other options for importuning from Charlie’s wooden cart, whose bedraggled horse people to give us a treat.